Hun­gar­ian jailed 25 years for part­ner’s grisly mur­der

A Hun­gar­ian na­tional has pleaded guilty to stab­bing his part­ner to death in 2012, re­sult­ing in 25 years im­pris­on­ment.

The in­ci­dent took place at an apart­ment in St Paul’s Bay. The ac­cused, Las­zlo Nan­dor Mar­ton had ini­tially de­nied the charges brought against him – that he wil­fully mur­dered his Hun­gar­ian part­ner, Yvette Ga­jda.

He changed his plea to guilty on Mon­day.

Mr Mar­ton was ac­cused with the vol­un­tary mur­der of his Hun­gar­ian part­ner and moth­erof-two, Ms Ga­jda. Pros­e­cut­ing In­spec­tor Keith Ar­naud had pre­vi­ously said in court that fol­low­ing the au­topsy, it was found that the vic­tim was stabbed more than 60 times with scis­sors. Mean­while nine stab wounds were found on the ac­cused as he tried to kill him­self af­ter he saw his part­ner in a pool of blood. The vic­tim, Ms Ga­jda, died at the scene of the crime due to the wounds she suf­fered, re­sult­ing in mas­sive blood loss.

It was said that the mur­der took place af­ter an ar­gu­ment erupted be­tween the ac­cused and the vic­tim. The courts heard how the vic­tim grabbed a pair of scis­sors, which were snatched by Mr Mar­ton, who pro­ceeded to stab her on her head, neck, shoul­ders and back. The ac­cused was ar­rested at the St Paul’s Bay apart­ment.

In his judg­ment, Judge An­to­nio Mizzi re­ferred to a case from 2002 against Mario Camil­leri, and noted that an ad­mis­sion of guilt prior to a trial by jury does not trans­late into a less harsh sen­tence. He said that this is fur­ther strength­ened by the fact that the ac­cused was caught at the scene of the crime.

In view of this, the Crim­i­nal Court im­pris­oned the ac­cused for 25 years, and also or­dered him to pay court ex­penses amount­ing to €6,450.

The ac­cused told the po­lice that he could not ac­cept that the love of his life was see­ing an­other man and had told him face to face that she wanted to go and live with him when he was ini­tially in­ter­ro­gated.

“I found my part­ner of 10 years in the bed of Ahmed. Later I con­fronted her, and af­ter say­ing that she is go­ing to leave me, she told me that she will soon move in with him.”

Af­ter be­ing ar­rested, the ac­cused was ad­mit­ted to Mater Dei Hospi­tal suf­fer­ing from se­ri­ous, though non-lifethreat­en­ing, in­juries, and was later kept at Mount Carmel Hospi­tal be­cause of fear he would kill him­self.

Mag­is­trate Neville Camil­leri, who had presided over the com­pi­la­tion of ev­i­dence, heard In­spec­tor Ar­naud tes­ti­fy­ing about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Ta­mara, who is the vic­tim’s daugh­ter, told the in­spec­tor that the ac­cused was al­ways jeal­ous of her mother be­cause he al­ways be­lieved that she had a re­la­tion­ship with Ahmed who used to live in the same apart­ment.

She had told In­spec­tor Ar­naud that it was noth­ing of the sort but she knew that the cou­ple were al­ways fight­ing about Ahmed and that Mar­ton was very jeal­ous of him. She had also said that on the night of the mur­der they went to sleep in an­other flat, which be­longed to Ahmed, who was not there at the time.

She had said that early that morn­ing she heard her mother shout­ing af­ter the ac­cused asked to speak to her. Af­ter a while she had heard her mother shout­ing and say­ing “please don’t do this, I have five chil­dren”, and a lit­tle while later all the shout­ing stopped.

She later saw her mother in a pool of blood. Mean­while a cer­tain Annabelle, the vic­tim’s friend, told the Po­lice that the cou­ple had been fight­ing very fre­quently lately and a week be­fore the in­ci­dent the ac­cused had grabbed her by the neck.